Design Registry

Intellectual properties are now one of the most valued possessions; patents are worth it and help you legally protect your design creations; if you hold a patent in your country, you can stop the evil competitor company from stealing and copying your designs, in your country. If you have worldwide patents for your designs, you can stop any company from stealing and copying your designs, at least in theory. In practice however, registering a design patent can cost a lot, and patent applications and registrations must be done for each country, this means that if you wish to have a worldwide patent for your products, you are obliged to get a patent for your design at each country. While this is not a problem for multinational corporations and large-companies who have both the budget and manpower to do so, the worldwide patent registration is not economically feasible for artists, makers and designers who have limited resources and time.To solve this issue, there exists copyrights laws based on Bern Convention. The copyrights laws, widely accepted in the world, although varying slightly at each country or country-block, state that if a design is considered enough “unique”, i.e. an art work, a well-made work, a work for which significant intellectual effort and design time is spent, such works do not need Patent registration, and are subject to protection by copyright laws.However, in this case, you must prove that you are indeed the original and the sole creator of the piece of work, and of course you must in additionally prove that your design is not an industrial design but rather is a piece of art, or as accepted in some countries it is a design where significant amount of intellectual work has been embedded; i.e. it is a well-developed and well-defined design. Design Registry is a service that could potentially help you to demonstrate the paternity over your work, the service could potentially help prove that you are indeed the original and the sole creator of the piece of work. The service provided by the Design Registry has four major aspects that could be helpful for you when you would defend that you are the creator of a work of art.First of all, Design Registry has a system where you could register and upload your designs online. When you register and upload your design, the images and visuals you have uploaded are time-stamped and assigned a reference number. The timestamp of the upload among with the uploaded design images and the reference number are included and clearly stated in a confirmation document that you could download from Design Registry platform after the upload process. This confirmation document could potentially indicate that you had the possession of the design at a given point of time. Proving that you had the design at a particular point of time, could be potentially useful in cases where another company would perhaps state that they had published the work earlier and you copied them. If you could show and demonstrate that you had the design at hand, before the date the company who had published the design, it could be a point favoring your arguments. In addition to the confirmation document, the Design Registry also prepares a special envelope template that you could download and print at any printer which could print on an A4 paper. This A4 paper, after printing could be folded into an origami envelope. The envelope should be printed in two sides and includes the design visuals, images and has additionally a signature section where your colleagues, friends or witnesses shall dully sign it with the date of signature. The origami envelop folds in a way that the design details and signatures are kept inside. Design Registry suggests that you print these envelopes three copies and have them dully signed by witnesses who state that you are the original creator of the work, with the date of signature. These envelopes are called the Design Claims. The date printed by the system must match the date of signature for validity of the documents.While a copy of your Design Claim could be kept by you, Design Registry suggests that a copy of the Design Claim to be send to their addresses. Design Registry will then save and archive the original and signed Design Claim. Your Design Claim will be put in another envelope which will be signed and stamped with the day of arrival and afterwards sealed. The date on which the Design Claim have arrived to Design Registry will be saved and updated online as well. This will also update your Confirmation document, with an additional line that a copy of the Design Claim has been received and stored.Design Registry suggests that you send the copy of the Design Claim envelope directly to their address without putting the Design Claim envelope inside any container; i.e. it should be send naked. If you could, you are suggested to use registered post. The reason for sending the Design Claim by post is simple; it is to have the Design Claim envelop time-stamped by the post office as well, which could be useful in some situations.It is important to note that the Design Registry, will not open the envelope. However if your envelope was damaged or open, this information will be updated to the system. All Design Claims that are received by the Design Registry will be stored for at least five (5) years and you will be given the possibility to extend the duration for an additional five (5) years. The third copy of the Design Claim should be send to yourself. The processes are all explained by the Design Registry platform. This copy shall be send to your own address from the nearest post office who could time-stamp the envelope during the process. Here, you should remember to not to put your envelope into any other container to ensure the post office time-stamp is made directly on your envelope.By following this procedure, in case of a future dispute, you will have the ability to request Design Registry to send you back the original sealed Design Claim or you could be able to use your original posted Design Claim. The Design Claim which includes the signatures of two witnesses, the design image, time of upload, timestamp by the post-office, could be potentially used to prove that you had the design at your hand at a given date and time.It shall be noted that if you need your original copy from the Design Registry send back to you, it will be done so by Express Courier, and any expedition costs shall be covered by you and the service is further subject to administrative fees. Furthermore, since only one copy exists, this could be done only one time. Thus if not necessary, it is best to use your post-stamped copy during any procedure.A further service by the Design Registry is to forward a copy of your design to a third-party on your request, with receipt of agreement and confirmation. This could be somehow compared to a registered e-mail. Each recipient that you wish to send your Design Claim will be asked to sign the Design Registry’s NDA, Terms and Conditions document, plus any other document prepared by you.Once you send a design to a third-party, the Design Registry will contact the persons who would receive your designs by email. The design recipient will be asked to provide identity details and sign the design and non-disclosure contracts. Once the recipient provides the necessary documentation and uploads this documentation to the Design Registry platform, you are notified by an email. Only after checking their documents and confirming that all the details are as you want to be, you could send the final download link.Of course, if you are working with a trusted party, you could also send the download link without any prerequisites, i.e. without requiring the recipient to upload any identification. In this case, you will get a confirmation of download email only. Furthermore if you need some documents to be signed but not the whole procedure be completed, you have the ability to choose which details shall be provided; i.e. if you do not need the recipient to upload their identity card, you can do so.For the Registered Email Service, the Design Registry suggests that at least a signed document shall be present. Regardless of the situation, the service will log the IP Address of the recipient. Senders can also edit the accepted IP Range settings to ensure that the download link could not be downloaded by third parties, but by only a specific IP Address, or an IP-Sub Mask.Design Registry could be used to store your designs as well, and they will only be visible to you or those who you allow, and as told earlier, Design Registry is a way of demonstrating you are the original designer and creator of a project and could be used to defend yourself, and could potentially be used against companies who use your artworks. To use the Design Registry and have a Design Claim or Registered Email, simply visit designregistry.netExerpt:Intellectual properties are now one of the most valued possessions; patents are worth it and help you legally protect your design creations; if you hold a patent in your country, you can stop the evil competitor company from stealing and copying your designs, in your country. If you have worldwide patents for your designs, you can stop any company from stealing and copying your designs, at least in theory. In practice however, registering a design patent can cost a lot, and patent applications a..